


In Eternal Search For Doorways Home

by DigitalMoriarty



Series: Doors Open Both Ways [1]
Category: Justice League, Wayward Children Series - Seanan McGuire, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: A lot of people are kinda creepy, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Every Heart a Doorway, Drabbles, Gen, M/M, Pietro and Wanda are kinda creepy, Sort Of, everyone wants to go home, general weirdness, so many characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:35:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DigitalMoriarty/pseuds/DigitalMoriarty
Summary: There are so many doorways to fall through and so many ways to end up back. Not nearly so many ways to get home again. That doesn't stop them from hoping, keep them from searching. But here they can huddle together, a box of puzzle pieces that no longer fit. (Drabble Collection)





	1. Barry Meets Some New Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This might not make sense if you've never read Every Heart a Doorway. If you have not read Every Heart a Doorway, you should look it up because it is absolutely brilliant. In the meantime, welcome to Miss Coburn's school, for people who just want to go home.
> 
> Also, as this is a drabble collection, each chapter will be titled with the person/relationship it is focused on.

"Who are they?"   
"Who ar- Oh. Them. You don't want to have anything to do with them. They're  _ weird _ ."   
  


Barry looked over to the table the pair of people were sitting at. The young man with a shock of silvery white hair and sleek goggles on top of his head was wearing strange running shoe-leather knee high boot hybrids, black leather pants and a tight fitting black tank top.  He was also bouncing his knee at a truly ridiculous speed. The young woman sitting across from him had a thick mane of wavy-curly dark brown hair, warm, pale brown skin and a prominent Roman nose, giving her face a classical air. She was wearing a red velvet dress that looked like it had come straight out of a fantasy novel, hood pushed back and strange black symbols creeping up from the hem and sleeves.

 

They weren't talking, just sitting together, man ignoring his food, woman eating with determination.   
They didn't look weird, they looked  _ interesting _ .   
  


He realized, somewhat belatedly, that his guide was still talking.

 

"-never seen him eat. Miss Crestmere says that it's from what was done to him but it's so  _ weird _ . Like his running thing. Anyway, their world was evil, not at all like our sorts of world."   
  


Barry's mind latched on to 'running thing'.   
No one here loved running the way he loved running.   
Except, perhaps, the 'weird' young man.   
  


...Who his guide had not actually named.   
  


So he ignored her and headed over to the table, leaving her flailing behind him.   
  


"Hi. I'm new here. My name's Barry Allen."   
  


They both looked up.   
Their eyes were the same color, a sharp cutting blue.   
She spoke first, half a smile curling her lips. "Nice to meet you Barry. I'm Wanda Maximoff. They usually don't let the new ones anywhere near us."   
"Yeah, we might infect them. Or kill and eat them. Who knows."   
"Hush you. Hardly our fault their brains are full of candy floss. That's my twin brother Pietro. He's a sarcastic asshole."   
  


She didn't actually look away from Barry while talking to her brother. He didn't seem to mind.   
  


"Pauline said you had a running thing, I was wondering what sort of running thing it was? Since I sort of accidentally tuned her out..."   
  


"It's easy to do that. She has that sort of voice. Move please."   
  


The voice came from behind him, and he moved and turned to see a blonde woman, taller than he was, dressed in head to toe leather of the incredibly practical variety. Her smile didn't reach her eyes but her expression thawed as she set her tray down, dipping her head to kiss Wanda's cheek before sitting down.   
  


"And because Pietro really is a sarcastic asshole, I'll be helpful. He's faster than anyone else on the planet as far as we know. And he literally can't sit still. Oh, and he doesn't need to eat and he doesn't actually get tired the same way normal people do. I'm Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina and I went to the most fucked up Fairyland around."   
  


And Barry  _ cannot _ help himself. He really can't.   
  


"He might not be the fastest anymore."   
  


Pietro looks up at him, one eyebrow raising like Spock at his most sarcastic.   
  


"Oh really."   
"Yeah. Wanna have a race sometime?"   
"We'll see if you can keep up."


	2. Barry Meets Bobby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of a number of the other characters that'll be showing up and Bobby/John although it's not the focus of the story

"Hey, you must be the new guy."   
  


Barry looked up, into a bright smile and friendly blue eyes.   
  


"I'm Bobby. Figured I'd come say hello after I saw you talking to the Musketeers at lunch. Hope Pietro didn't send you running for the hills, he can be a bit of a dick."   
"Uh, I'm Barry. People call them the Musketeers?"   
"People who get along with them at least. So... Me, Kitty, Johnny and Anne Marie. Most other people aren't so nice, but they don't usually care."   
"Oh. That seems kinda awful."   
"Eh, a lot of us here at the school went to what the twins call candy floss worlds. I mean, I went to the North Pole. Anne Marie was apprenticed to a fairy godmother. People who fit in candy floss land don't necessarily understand people who didn't. I do, and Anne Marie does but... well, if you're used to sunshine and unicorns, it's not always easy to understand darkness and people trying to stab you."   
  


Bobby's smile went crooked.   
  


"You seem a bit candy floss yourself, but you lasted a lunch with them, so maybe you'll fit in. Who're you rooming with?"   
"Uh... some guy named Hal? I haven't met him yet."   
"Oh, that's not too bad. I mean, Hal's weird as fuck, but that's not too unusual around here. Just don't try to paint the room yellow and you'll be fine. Anyway, he tries to be nice to Johnny so I basically have to like him."   
"Johnny? Who's Johnny? You've mentioned him a couple times now..."   
"My boyfriend. Everyone else calls him John. He did... not go to a candy floss world. But he's a good friend and a good boyfriend and yeah he's a near Pietro level dick sometimes but he mostly means well."   
  
Bobby shrugged, smile softening as he talked about his boyfriend.   
  


"I better get going, I've got a math class. But I'll see you at dinner, okay? You can meet the rest of our band of weirdness."   
  


And Barry didn't know  _ what _ compelled him to ask the question, as Bobby turned away (okay, he did know what compelled him but he wasn't going to say anything) but he did. "What makes them willing to hang out with people if they went to candy floss worlds?"   
  


Bobby looked back over his shoulder at him, eyes somehow sharp and sweet and sad all at once. "Those people knowing that even the sweetest, fluffiest candy floss is hiding at least a couple razor blades."


	3. Anna Marie (Rogue)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anna Marie (Rogue)

Looking at Anna Marie you'd never _guess_ she went... a bit candy floss  
  
(And it wasn't just candy floss. It was hard work and tragedy and 'I shall not have _that_ play out in _my_ lands')  
(It was control over _yourself_ which is more important and more powerful than most people ever know, ever realize.)  


Hers was a world of fairy tales and floating islands, connected by gossamer bridges and ships that floated in the air as if it were water, of kingdoms and castles and magic.  
And you look at her and it makes no sense.  


Until you remember that good is not necessarily light.  


 

Her fairy godmother had dark eyes and dark wings and dark skin and a dark sense of humor and was the most wonderful, most kind hearted, most loving person Anna Marie had ever ever known  


It was through her apprenticeship to Ekundayo that she met Princess Adetokunbo, whose skin was dark as the night and whose smile was bright as the sun.  


Princess 'Call me Ade Godmother's Apprentice, and I will call you Anna Marie and not 'Godmother's Apprentice Who Is Always Sunburned Because She Cannot Remember That Many Of The Kingdoms Under The Good Fairy Ekundayo's Gaze Are On The Sunny Side And Never Brings Her Protective Creams.' Adetokunbo.  


The best friend Anna Marie had ever had.  
  
Brave and sharp witted and strong and fast and fierce and all without a fairy godmother's gifts. (The only boon Adetokunbo had gotten was from the Jeweled Fairy Yekaterina, a magical talking lion for a steed and ally, in gratitude for saving her charge, Prince Vladislav from a wrathful manticore.)  


And the world is full of fairy tales. Every kingdom, every culture, had their own.  


Some kinder than others.  


And Anna Marie had learned from the Good Fairy Ekundayo, and the Bright Fairy Swarna and the Gentle Fairy Eun-Yeong and the Dark Fairy Clotilde and the Thistle Fairy Lilias and the Crimson Fairy Rozenn (for when you are apprenticed to one fairy godmother, others cannot help but teach you as well).  


'Not in my lands.'  
'Not beneath my gaze.'  
'Not while I still have any power left.'  
'It does not matter what the tales might want, I will not have _that_ play out when I can stop it.'  


Anna Marie knows about candy floss.  
She knows about fluffy clouds and princesses and granting wishes. She knows about unicorns.  


Anna Marie knows about razor blades.  
She knows about sobbing children and blood and unhappy endings. She knows what unicorns can _do_ .  


Anna Marie knows, more than anything else, that she has control over herself and that control cannot find her world for her again. That she has been cursed and until she finds a way to break it, she cannot get home.  


She knows too, about what Ekundayo and Ade would both say about Kitty.  
"Take her with you when you come home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the background I gave Anna Marie. But then, I love everyone's background!


	4. Illyana/Wanda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of Illayana focused? Hopefully enjoyable to read.

Illyana did not call Wanda beautiful.

She wasn't beautiful, by Illyana's standards.

  
Nothing in this place was.

  
Illyana was glad of that.

  
Beauty was...  
Beauty was...  
Beauty was what her world had been filled with and it had been dangerous and poisonous and deadly.

  
Wanda wasn't beautiful.

  
But Wanda was good. Wanda was hers.

Wanda would have looked at Illyana's former masters and spat in their beautiful eyes.  
And then done the nastiest thing she could do to them, with what her world had given her.

  
Wanda would have died, but she'd have done it.

  
And Illyana loves her.  
Loves her like she loves her sword.  
Loves her like she had loved her fellow changelings until she was forced to kill them.  
(She was always forced to kill them. Because it was kill or be killed. And Illyana hadn't wanted to die.)

  
Wanda understands.  
Wanda has offered her sketches of some of the traps that had protected the keeps and hideaways of her world.  
Wanda has curled up with her, and told her the bedtime stories she'd been told (and had, in turn, told others) and listened to her talk.

  
Talk about the pits and the fights and how beautiful everything had been.  
Talk about the glittering court and the pain and how you couldn't help but love your fellow changelings, even knowing what could happen, what would happen.

  
She'd have killed the Queen for Wanda.  
("While the lord of the castle was out fighting, it was his lady who defended the keep. She would stay safe within the walls and make sure it was there when he returned. Probably surrounded by lots of corpses. Let me be your lady?")

  
And on the nights that sleep was impossible (for so many reasons... so so many...) she'd creep out, making sure the traps were perfectly set and she'd go get Wanda.

  
Wanda never minded waking up for her, never minded disentangling from her brother (giving him a kiss on the forehead and ignoring his eyeroll) and coming with her, up and up and up, past the room Loki lived in (forever pining for the world which had banished him to this one. Loki was not from Here.) and onto the roof.

To sit together and watch the stars which were so different than what either of them had known.


	5. Bobby Drake/John Allerdyce

Johnny sometimes looked at Bobby like he was fire.   
  


Fire had been the only good thing Johnny'd had in the world he'd gone to.   
  


It took everything else, piece by piece by piece. Except fire.   
  


It had taken and twisted and it had only ended when he'd escaped. Down a long dark passage lit with torches and the only thing he could hope was that what was at the end was better.   
  


It would not have been a hope that was hard to satisfy.   
  


And it had been the place he'd left, what felt like centuries ago.   
  


And now he has fire.   
  


And he has Bobby.   
  


In the place of white light and suits and corporations and magic making money, he'd never have let himself get near Bobby.   
  


But then, no one like Bobby could have survived that place. Not and stayed the man Johnny loved so so very much.   
  


Here... here though. Well, here has its horrors.   
  


But here, even the worst they can do is not as bad as what could have been done over there.   
  


("Even worse than-"   
"Yes. Worse than that. Worse than anything. I could heal. That didn't mean I didn't feel pain. And that was hardly the only thing they could do. Whatever you can think of, they could do worse.")   
  


And he has Bobby.   
  


And he has his fire.   
  


And if anyone tries to  _ take _ Bobby from him, he will pretend he is back in the world he'd gone to.   
  


And they will  _ burn _ .   
  


(Bobby knows this. Bobby loves him despite it. Or because of it. Bobby had gone to the North Pole. Bobby never felt the cold. Bobby had seen so many little match girls. Bobby knew the value of fire.)   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Johnny did not go to a... particularly nice world.


	6. Barry Meets Kitty

"Oh! You're Barry Allen, right?"   
  


Barry turned to see a petite brunette girl, dressed in a  _ lot _ of pink. The only thing  _ not _ pink was the Star of David on a chain around her neck.   
  


"You can call me Kitty. I room with Illyana. She said you sat with them at lunch. I'd have been there, but my honeybun wanted some snuggle time, so who am I to deny her?"   
  


She's so... cute. And perky. And looked like she was about to giggle at him. He tried to imagine what the room she apparently shared with Illyana looked like. He  _ had _ spent lunch with them, sitting beside Pietro and trying  _ not _ to talk too much and Kitty wasn't the first person to come up to him after.   
  


She was, however, only the second one not to sound horrified or alarmed about who he'd spent lunch with.   
  


"No offense, but you seem really... pink... for someone sharing a room with Illyana..." He trailed off as she laughed. No.  _ Giggled _ .   
  


But her eyes. Her face was bright and sweet and her eyes were like burning pits.   
  


"Oh, I am really very pink. But Illyana and I get along pretty well. How about you come to the second floor rec room after group tonight? You can meet everyone decent around this place."   
  


She gave him a little finger wave and  _ skipped _ off.   
  


"KItty and Illyana get along because Kitty went to a very literal hell. They tried to shape her into being the perfect consort for their king. Kitty decided 'fuck that and fuck you'. She's pink mostly out of spite. She's like one of those ridiculously poisonous frogs. Bright and colorful and perfectly capable of killing you."   
  


Barry hadn't even heard someone come up, but there she was, a tall black girl with a mane of white hair.   
  


"Don't worry though. She seems to like you."   
"Um. Do I... know... you?"   
"No. I'm Ororo. And I'm sure I'll see you around."   
"Hey, wait!"   
  


But she was already gone and he didn't have his shoes...   
  


But he had somewhere to go tonight at least.


	7. Explaining Loki

"So. Um. Why do we have a weird locked room?"  
"Has no one explained Loki yet?"   
"Of course not. The sugar and spice lot don't like admitting he's there. Pretty obvious evidence of razors our prince is."   


Illyana smiled at Barry.  


"Who wants to bet she's going to pull a fairy and start speaking in riddles?"  
"Fuck you John."   
"No, that's Bobby's job."   
" _You_ want to explain him?"   
"Hell no, explaining him is like trying to explain quantum physics to a hamster."   
"Than shut up and let me talk."   


Barry had already figured out that no one else spoke to them like they spoke to each other.  
And that _everyone_ who wasn't one of them, including the teachers who came from the town and the few staff that lived at the school, found it _incredibly_ strange that Barry had fallen in with them.   


"So. You know how we all came from this world, went somewhere else, and then came back?"  
"...yeah?"   
"Loki came from somewhere else and went here."   
"...wait what?"   
"Loki came from some sort of magical world with lots of honor and battle and grand adventures. The sort of place most of them would think is wonderful. Loki was a prince there and it wasn't wonderful for him. He got exiled here. There's actually a school for people like him, run by a woman named Diana. She visits him sometimes. But he's mad as a hatter and won't leave the attic room. He doesn't necessarily know who or when or what he is at any point in time. Sometimes he rants about the not-brother that betrayed him and sometimes he sobs for his pretty swanwife and children and the empire he left behind and sometimes he just whimpers about the cold dark of space. It tends to be a bit..."   
"Completely fucking crazy. Just don't force the door open or something really stupid like that and he won't bother you. He's just insane and depressed and really far from home."   


Pietro's voice was knife sharp and Illyana gave him a pointed look.  


"What Pietro said."  
"And that is why we have a weird locked room up in the attic." Bobby chirped, with a hint of a smirk curling his lips.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First mention of the Other School. There will be some stories set over there, but those will probably end up in their own story. If people have any requests for characters they'd like to see more about or that sort of thing, just put them in the comments.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of rambling about this information, and if any of this has interested you, just message me on Tumblr (name's the same there as here) and I'll give you my Discord and you can see all the background I've worked out for everything. I'm rather proud of it.


End file.
